tag:,2009:/1/tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105- 2009-10-30T14:53:43Z Comments for Firefox 2 Launch: Interview With Chris Beard, Mozilla VP Products Movable Type 4.23-en tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105 2006-10-24T12:47:09Z 2007-12-16T23:16:27Z Firefox 2 Launch: Interview With Chris Beard, Mozilla VP Products This afternoon Firefox 2 will be officially launched. In anticipation of the unveiling, here is an in-depth interview with Chris Beard (Mozilla Vice President of Products). Subjects discussed in the interview include the growing enterprise usage of Firefox, the importance of user experience and security, Mozilla's theory behind Web feeds and why they haven't included... Richard MacManus http://www.readwriteweb.com firefox 2This afternoon Firefox 2 will be officially launched. In anticipation of the unveiling, here is an in-depth interview with Chris Beard (Mozilla Vice President of Products). Subjects discussed in the interview include the growing enterprise usage of Firefox, the importance of user experience and security, Mozilla's theory behind Web feeds and why they haven't included an integrated RSS Reader, the growing add-on ecosystem, offline browsing, why this is a 2.0 release and not a 1.x one, and finally Chris tells us a little about the future of the browser.

Firefox growth

Chris started off with an overview of Firefox's market position. He said it is a global community and a public benefit organization. Their free and Open Source products attract:

  • 100’s of active technical contributors
  • 10,000’s of nightly testers
  • 100,000’s of evangelists and marketers
  • 70,000,000+ end-users in 40+ languages

Chris said there is strong demand and growth. Last year at this time when they released Firefox 1.5, they had around 200,000 people per day downloading it. Today that number is more like 350,000 and growing, which Chris attributes to strong viral and organic growth. 

Firefox in the Enterprise

I asked Chris whether enterprise users are beginning to use Firefox more? Chris said yes, they're noticing that more and more. He said their focus is building products for individual users as opposed to enterprises or organizations, however they're finding that users are bringing Firefox into the enterprise with them - on the basis of security advantages, productivity gains [etc]. 

]]> Chris said that current stats indicate that Firefox usage peaks mid-week, as opposed to the weekends - which he said is the reverse of what it was two years ago when they launched Firefox. He thinks this does suggest strong usage within the workplace. He also said they're hearing that more and more IT departments "are moving over" - certainly in some of the larger tech-oriented firms, like IBM, where Firefox is being used internally.

User Experience and Security

Talking about the Firefox upgrade, Chris said that the two key things they focused on in FF2 were 1) tuning the user experience - making it more efficient and enhancing customization; and 2) security. 

In terms of the user experience, Chris mentioned the tweaks to the tabs, undo close tab, "session restore" and search suggestions as examples of improvements to usability. He also said that Firefox 2 focuses on bringing capabilities that are typically found in desktop apps, into the browser - inline spelling is the most obvious such feature. They support multiple languages too.

For security, Chris said they're very proud that Firefox has the fastest response time of any vendor - they respond to security issues in days, "as opposed to the weeks and months that you might see from other vendors". He also said Firefox looks to be very proactive in security - e.g. their Phishing Protection. Using plain, everyday language is also a feature in FF - so they don't use the term "phishing" for example in their pop-up messages.

Web Feeds

In Firefox 2 they have extended the lightweight feeds integration approach of Live Bookmarks, by making it easier for people to recognize and make use of feeds (providing summaries, options for RSS Readers). 

I asked Chris whether they have any plans to integrate their own (fully functional) RSS Reader into Firefox. He replied:

"We've evaluated between: should we make Firefox a fully featured news reader, or should we make Firefox awesome at content discovery and handoff? We decided that the browser should be about helping you find information and then channeling that information to an appropriate service. [...] at the same time there are add-ons or extensions which do integrate and add fully featured news reader services to Firefox [...] such as Sage."

I asked whether Mozilla might, in the near future, re-visit that decision to not integrate an RSS Reader (by default) in the browser? Chris replied:

"We see that RSS is still very early in its adoption and use overall. The people who seem to be currently using it to great effect are newshounds [...] We're already, in terms of future product planning, thinking about how is RSS really just a basic capability - like HTML is - and what is the real use case and what is the real adoption. I think things like MyYahoo and iGoogle, in terms of personalized news where you don't need to know it's RSS, is along the lines of where things will be heading. And certainly we'll evolve the browser as appropriate. But at this point we've erred on the side of giving people maximum flexibility to manage RSS in any way in which they choose."

Personalize your browser

Extensions (now being called add-ons in the 2.0 timeframe) are a key feature of FF2. It keeps the core browser streamlined, while allowing users to personalize their browser with add-ons. 

Chris said that the add-on space "has really mushroomed in the last year". They now have close to 2000 add-ons for Firefox, from shopping comparison add-ons to blogging add-ons and a lot in between. He says there's "huge amounts of innovation" in the add-on space - and they're using it as a kind of test bed, pulling ideas from the add-on space into the core product as they move forward. He says add-ons are easy to build too and are similar to creating web apps.

Offline Browsing

Chris mentioned that their implementation of the WhatWG DOMStorage specification may potentially enable offline browsing. Right now they don't know of anyone supporting these offline modes for their applications yet, but going forward Chris sees offline browsing (e.g. composing email on the plane) as a significant step forward. So Mozilla is helping to implement the building blocks of that offline browsing concept.

Why 2.0?

I asked Chris the reason why the upgrade is a 2.0 release, rather than a 1.x:

"It's more sort of a natural evolution. It felt to us like a 2.0 product, particularly if we looked at it from what 1.0 was, to 2.0. It was like half steps, from 1.0 to 1.5 to 2.0. It's also a very stable and rock solid release - it's really ready for the masses. So it really does feel like a 2, as opposed to a 1.x product. Firefox 2 has, we estimate, between 3-4 times the number of fixes than FF 1.5 did. And that doesn't just include fixes and bugs, but all of the feature work as well as memory, stability and security issues. But there's certainly a lot in it which makes it really solid."

The Future of Firefox

Finally, I asked Chris for his thoughts on the future of the browser. He said:

"[...] if at some level the browser can move into the background, and it's really the web content that's the most important thing and the ability for you to cleanly interact with your online life [...] it really shouldn't matter whether you're accessing your content from your computer, your phone or your tv - we're going to see consistency in that experience."

In closing, Chris told me that Mozilla is "really excited about the fact that the Web is again evolving - and there's a tremendous amount of innovation going on in terms of browsers as well as web 2.0". He said that Mozilla and Firefox have demonstrated that "the browser does matter", that it has enabled and empowered better experiences and will continue to do so.

Chris concluded by saying that Mozilla will constantly look to push the envelope and we'll see a lot more from them yet - and from the Web at large too.

See also: Read/WriteWeb's product review of Firefox 2 and more information from Chris Beard on how it will be marketed.

]]> tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39971 Comment from TechTweaker on 2006-10-24 TechTweaker http://techtweaker.com/ I'm happy to hear that they're going to keep improving the browser. Microsoft on the other hand, will only make improvements when threatened by Superior browsers like Firefox.

I guess thats a good thing though. The evolution of the web.

]]> 2006-10-24T16:53:30Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39972 Comment from jopotts on 2006-10-24 jopotts http://jopotts.com Having got the unofficial official -1 day release posted on slashdot yesterday (which has now been removed), after a day's use I can say it feels pretty solid. IE7 is slicker looking, but I still have more faith in Firefox. Nice work.

]]> 2006-10-24T17:09:05Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39973 Comment from asdf on 2006-10-24 asdf Does it use less memory now? And how about fewer crashes?

]]> 2006-10-24T19:04:19Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39974 Comment from Britton Kilpatrick on 2006-10-24 Britton Kilpatrick I have been using 2.0 since the beta2 release (windows version), and even the beta versions have been very stable for me. I can't remember any time that it has crashed since I switch to 2.0.

In my experience Firefox on a Mac has been less stable that its Windows counterpart (pre 2.0 version). I have yet to upgrade on my Mac, so we'll see.

]]> 2006-10-24T19:59:36Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39975 Comment from Jeremiah on 2006-10-24 Jeremiah Glad to see mention of my favorite RSS Reader (sage).

Firefox 2 is a real step forward, although the differences aren't apparent to most end-users. The one thing I must thank the Firefox team for is the location of the "X" (close button) on the tabs. Now the "X" is located on the individual tab, instead of the right side for all tabs. I like this, now I don't accidentally close a tab I was viewing.

]]> 2006-10-24T20:27:46Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39976 Comment from Why Hate RAM Usage? on 2006-10-24 Why Hate RAM Usage? The much-maligned (and frankly, entirely misunderstood) memory issue is just about the same, because there WAS no memory issue. The RAM taken by FF increases with the number of tabs you open - it's caching the contents of each tab. You can 'hack' into FF's settings (via "about:config") so that the cache empties every time you minimize the browser (google it), and you will indeed see FF give up the a lot of the RAM it was using. But really, what's the point? Unused RAM is completely useless - RAM is *meant* to be used. Unless you choose to open Photoshop or another RAM-intensive program *after* opening Firefox with a bunch of tabs open, it shouldn't affect you at all. If you are going to use RAM-intensive apps, start them before browsing the web, or hack-back your RAM.

]]> 2006-10-24T20:44:42Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39977 Comment from Emre Sokullu on 2006-10-24 Emre Sokullu http://emresokullu.com No RSS reader? Good decision.. Keep it simple, keep it safe.

]]> 2006-10-24T21:01:33Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39978 Comment from David Mackey on 2006-10-24 David Mackey http://www.gamesecretary.com/blog.aspx I have installed Firefox 2. It is a nice step up, though not very radical. However, I think it deserves the 2.0 moniker. I am looking forward to Firefox 3 already though I also want to see more development on Thunderbird and Lightning.

]]> 2006-10-24T22:30:07Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39979 Comment from DrFrancky on 2006-10-31 DrFrancky Just a siple question .. why do you prefer Fire Fox?....
looks like a simple question but it is not a simple one.
I am a hard IE user and i wanna know why to switch ?
consider this:
I am a windows so called guru ( i know .most. about security and how to protect my self without a AV,FW,latest patches. i am not saying it is a easy work .. but i know how to deal).
i am a windows interface cowboy (IE shortcut cowboy)

i just need a reason to switch to FireFox .. just give me one.

]]> 2006-11-01T06:52:30Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39980 Comment from sosio2k on 2006-11-01 sosio2k the reason that u use firefox is because it's freakin safe better than IE and it got alot of pluggins,when u're in a big company like i did, u will know that's stupidity happens when all of the employee using IE, it's like a freakin time bomb, i'm the one who encourage them to use firefox, not all people like u (so called windows guru) are understand to avoid security problem in IE. if u know how to protect urself in using IE then u know there's alot of hole in IE that u can avoid, why bother avoid them? when u can slip trough the easy way, stop using it and try another browser or another OS.

]]> 2006-11-01T08:33:59Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39981 Comment from Charles Darke on 2006-11-09 Charles Darke http://Digitalconsumption.com Why did you not implement HttpOnly cookies? If there were concerns with cookie file format incompatibility, it would be possible to have a transition period where two files are maintained or at least set a line in the sand which says that after a certain date it will change.

]]> 2006-11-09T18:27:21Z tag:72.47.210.69,2006://1.5105-comment:39982 Comment from arielb on 2006-11-13 arielb Why Firefox? Here's a reason that goes beyond any one specific feature. Because it is completely open and easy to extend its capabilities. For example, with adblock extension I can filter out any ad and if there's one on a website that escaped the filter, i just click and it's gone. Or let's say you really like the tab preview on IE7. Well I added that feature too.

You don't have to wait years and years for Microsoft to finally get around to a feature in the browser when you can just get someone else to develop it. Or do it yourself if you can. The bigger the guru, the more you will benefit from Firefox.

]]> 2006-11-14T05:43:35Z